Macy Conference (Work in Progress)

Cybernetics sees behavior at the cellular level as systems of input/output, feedback and homeostasis in a process of reaching equilibrium as the ultimate goal.

In her book “How we Became Post-Humans”, N. Katherine Hayles outlines the arguments deployed in the Macy conferences on Cybernetics “ Broadly speaking, the arguments were deployed along three fronts. The first was concerned with the construction of information as a theoretical entity, the second, with the construction of (human) neural structures so that they were seen as flows of information, the third, with the construction of artifacts that translated information flows into observable operations, thereby making the flows “real” (Hayles 50).

“… at the first major Macy conference John Van Neumann and Norbert Wiener led the way by making clear that the important entity in the man-machine equation was information, not energy (…) Wiener, emphasizing the movement from energy to information, made the point explicitly: ‘The fundamental idea is the message… and the fundamental element of the message is the decision’. Decisions are important not because they produce material goods but because they produce information. Control information, and power follows (…) Wiener thought of information as representing a choice. More specifically, it represents a choice of one message from among a range of possible messages “ (Hayles 52).

Hayles continues “ We are now in a position to understand the deeper implications of information as it was theorized by Wiener and Shannon. Note that the theory is formulated entirely without reference to what information means. Only the probabilities of message elements enter into the equations. Why divorce information from meaning? Shannon and Wiener wanted information to have a stable value as it moved from one context to another. If it was tied to meaning, it would potentially have to change values every time it was embedded in a new context, because context affects meaning” (Hayles 53). Human psychology, including qualities such as consciousness and volition, could be interpreted in terms of information processes. Shannon and Wiener didn’t take into account connotative systems of language but stayed at the denotative level for practical reasons. Their self-imposed limitations were soon challenged by Alex Bavelas first and then by Donald MacKay.

"Donald MacKay, a British researcher, was trying to formulate in information theory that would take meaning into account” (Hayles 54). Mackay distinguished between “selective” information and “structural” information. “Structural information indicates how selective information is to be understood; it is a message about how to interpret a message – that is, meta-communication” (Ibid 55). In order words, MacKay raised the need of differentiating among symbols and signs, and the complexities of subjective, human communication, which includes “code switching” and cultural codes and conventions.

“MacKay theory had as its generative distinction the difference in the state of the receiver’s mind before and after the message arrived. In his model, information was not opposed to change, it was change” (Hayles 63).

MacKay has switched the emphasis from what information is to what information  do; thus opening the door to reflexivity, a word that does not name anything in particular but an interpretative approach to subjective processes. If homeostasis based cybernetics reduce information to quantifiable data and binary codes, reflexivity based cybernetics opens up the filed to psychology. A tension arose between “reified models and embodied subjectivity” (Hayles 57), between the application of logical form and structure, abstract modeling and representation of information processes and embodied information or a model of information that includes that richness of the human sensorium, perception, representation, memory, trauma, obsession, biases and other elements of particular, individual subjectivity. In the words of Hans-Lukas Teuber, “Only the psychologist can give the neurophysiologist information on what ‘ the most relevant aspects of the incipient structures [in sensory functions] may be” (Hayles 59).

Warren McCulloch tried to arrive at a compromise of both the formal-abstract and the embodied-concrete tendencies. “The model constructing the human in this terms was the McCulloch-Pitts neuron” (Hayles 57); which sought to describe binary-codes processing at the neural level. The input-output, goal-seeking behavior gets complicated a step further when McCulloch introduced the concepts of excitatory and inhibitory stimulus. “In his view, when a neuron receives an input related to a sensory stimulus, it firing is a direct consequence of something that happened in the external world” (Hayles 59). Needles to say, we are already aware of the push for simplification in the McCulloch-Pitts neuron model since is not taking into account internal phenomena such as the one described above and which are an internal part of the human psyche. External phenomena and stimuli is always received in a spectrum of meanings by different subjects. This model doesn’t take into account the un-common, the un-conventional and the strange. But McCulloch keeps drawing his model back to the external world by tying internal phenomena to neural loops or the reverberation of past events into memory. McCulloch called “signals” to the firings caused by external events, while “signs” were caused by history or memory reverberations. Human psyche is just an accumulation of past sensory experiences that can influence perception; the immediate conceptual outcome is that quantifying needs not go away. McCulloch is riding a tightrope between logical propositions or the abstract, theoretical construction of the human, a smack on the blueprint of the Platonic backhand; and the embodied actuality or the complexities, ineffability and unlimited wealth of the human being.

McCulloch compare pattern-recognition circuits at the neural level and at the machine-robot level to prove that they are the same. “These circuits are diagrams that have been abstracted from two different kinds of embodiments, neural tissues for the human and vacuum tubes or silicon chips for the robot” (Hayles 61).

If we compare Shannon’s from MacKay’s model in terms of political philosophy we would see that homeostasis construct of Shannon’s imply a sort of conservatism made apparent by the rearrangement of the system to a previous equilibrium position, in other words, any change deviation from the norm should be corrected (Ibid 63).

For MacKay information is change in itself since it implies a former state being altered or changed by the arrived message.

Regarding goal-seeking behavior, for Shannon’s “the goal was a pre-existing state toward which the mechanism would move by making a series of distinctions between correct and incorrect choices. The goal was stable and the mechanism would achieve stability when it reached the goal (Ibid 63-64). Information is thus constructed in terms of signal/noise. Anything that is an obstacle to achieving the goal is noise; any message helping to achieve it is a signal. For McKay “the goal was not a fixed point but was a changing series of values that varied with context” (Ibid 64). Looking at these models you could trace parallelisms between forms of governments, political philosophies and ideologies.

Another sets of implications show up when we apply Shannon’s signal/noise opposites to psychology. Since the goal of the individual is to function, be productive and happy in society, any noise affecting these goals can be interpreted in terms of neurotic symptoms or McCulloch’s neural reverberations, as represented by Shannon’s rat caught in a reflexive loop. Reflexivity or unlimited neural reverberations, and its paralyzing effects, is neurosis.

 

John Stroud’s “analysis of an operator sandwiched between a radar-tracking device on one side and an anti-aircraft gun on the other (is used) to construct the human as an input/output device” (Hayles 68). This is the image of the “man-in-the-middle”. A most fitting image for an utilitarian concept of the individual and its role in the collective. Not that the man-in-the-middle is in itself a negative rendition of humanity caught in the social fabric but it could be if it doesn’t take into account the individual’s will and disposition. Without this individual will and disposition unhappiness and slavery and all sort of human rights violations is brought into play. This is the case when someone is sacrificed against his/her will to serve the interest of the majority.

Polemics aroused between Stroud and Freemon-Smith about the exclusion of the observer in the man-in-the-middle equation. Frank Freemon-Smith objected, “You cannot possibly. Dr. Stroud, eliminate the human being” (Ibid 68). For Stroud, the man-in the middle is converted, “from and open-ended system into a portable instrument set” (Hayles 68). Now, if you look into Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience to Authority” experiment; and if you look into Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison” experiment, you would see that individuals may consciously and willingly withdraw moral and affective barriers in order to become what Stroud call an “input/output device”. The man-in-the-middle is a two faced Janus individual that exists between his/her en-codification and his/her own subjectivity. In order to function effectively his/her subjectivity needs to be suppressed and there are means to achieve so by using appeals to authority, personal gain or simply unbounded realization and pleasure.

(To continue…)